


we paint the town blue

by heartunsettledsoul



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Oblivious Pining, aka veronica throws a party and things get interesting, background varchie, every one is home for the summer and things get interesting, nonmurder post high school au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24635566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartunsettledsoul/pseuds/heartunsettledsoul
Summary: “Forsythe,” she begins sweetly. Jughead rolls his eyes and flips her off, Archie and a few others laughing lightly. “Truth or dare?”Everything in him tells Jughead to take his pass and leave. But…“Dare.”He doesn’t think he has ever seen Veronica look so delighted in the history of their friendship. Her eyes narrow slightly, calculating her best attack, and Jughead instantly regrets his decision.“I dare you to kiss your high school crush.”Beside him, Betty, who had paused her conversation with Kevin, freezes.
Relationships: Background Veronica Lodge/Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 110
Kudos: 299
Collections: 7th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	we paint the town blue

**Author's Note:**

> if this sounds familiar, it's because I originally wrote this as a drabble fill for the april bughead drabble challenge that raptor (hellodinoflower) ran! prompts were: truth or dare, craving, a missed opportunity. 
> 
> eternal shoutout to my liv-twin iconicponytail for being a constant sounding board when I want to bash my head into the keyboard or throw my computer out the window. 
> 
> title is, unsurprisingly, from taylor swift's "miss americana and the heartbreak prince"

Jughead had forgotten how effective the curtains are in the guest room— _his_ room, he supposes—in the Andrews family house. It isn’t surprising that he’s slept until nearly noon on his first day at home after freshman year of college; he is a night owl by habit. Jughead scheduled his classes accordingly so he never needed to be up before 10am, but between an athlete roommate and shitty blinds, he would wake up throughout the morning anyway. 

Back in high school, Jughead never closed the curtains or otherwise he never would have made it to class on time. Fred must have bought new ones in the past 8 months, because it is oppressively dark in the room in a way that he doesn’t remember at all. 

That, or his memory has recalibrated since August. 

Over Thanksgiving break, he opted to stay on campus for the extra work-study hours and the chance to not talk to another soul for a couple of days. Shockingly, he had almost come to miss the inane chatter of his lax bro roommate. After a lifetime as Archie Andrews’s best friend, Jughead can smile and nod along to sports information like the best of them. Adam may have some obnoxious teammates, but they got along far better than Jughead thought they would and the tiny cinderblock room had felt off without him. 

He spent Christmas break in Toledo, to everyone’s surprise. Gladys Jones, she of _I’m taking Jelly to visit Grand and Gramps for a bit and oh by the by I’m never coming back_ infamy, requested that her eldest child spend the holidays with her. Jughead saw his not-so-little sister in person for the first time in years (“It’s so good to see you, Bean!” “You see me on FaceTime every week you weirdo, stop hugging me.”), frosted mostly edible cutout cookies with his mom, and took his annual call from Downstate Penitentiary on the back porch where no one could hear him talk to FP. 

FP, for his many faults, had shaped up in prison. Three years for a felony DUI will do that to a man. 

Jughead used to harbor a lot of anger for FP; first for disintegrating their family, then for effectively abandoning him to the system without a second thought. It is something he is working on, though, helped along by one of the free counselors at the university health center. He walked past the building on his way to class for six straight weeks before finally saying _fuck it_ and walking in to make an appointment. It helps. He doesn’t hate it. (“How does that make you feel, Jughead?” “Like punching a wall.” “But you _aren’t_ punching a wall, and that is what counts.”) That Christmas, he had only considered ignoring the call for a brief moment instead of picking up at the last possible second like usual. 

(It’s a work in progress. Still, he’d answered the phone and accepted the charges.) 

And now Jughead is back in Riverdale, sleeping in later than he ever had in his years as the de facto second Andrews son. 

He’ll blame it on their late arrival the previous night. It was technically his fault, because Archie did go out of his way to pick him up from campus and drive him back home, but Archie also insisted on a second, unplanned detour to pick up Veronica from Manhattan. That meant they basically had to skirt all the way around Riverdale, sit on a gridlocked bridge, deal with the valet at the Lodges’ apartment building, and _then_ head back to their hometown. Those extra two hours did not include the time Jughead spent determinedly pretending that Archie and Veronica were not in the expensive Lodge penthouse _making up for lost time_. 

(Archie’s disheveled hair and the small hickey on Veronica’s collarbone when they returned to the car spoke much louder than their insistence that Veronica simply could not find her laptop charger. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Jughead scoffs, not without affection. He spent the better part of high school dealing with the various stages of Archie and Veronica’s relationship; while he could do without the PDA, it always endears him a bit to see them so happy. 

Not that he would ever let Veronica know that. He’d never live it down. Jughead can practically hear the taunting _Jug is a romantic_ echoing in his head now. 

For good measure, he tacks on an extra annoyance. “I hereby request the retribution for my emotional scarring to be paid out in double cheeseburgers.” 

Veronica reaches from the backseat and flicks him on the ear. 

“Ow, Jesus, Veronica.” 

She smiles at him, saccharine-sweet. “Missed you too, Torombolo.”) 

Jughead had fallen immediately into bed and, apparently, slept like the dead. 

Fred will have been out at the construction site for hours by now, and he feels a twinge of guilt for not being able to say hello last night or this morning. Maybe he’ll swing by Pops to get lunch for himself and bring some burgers to the site. 

There are muffled voices coming from the den as Jughead blearily descends the stairs, desperate for coffee. “Make yourselves decent, please!” he calls out with one hand over his eyes. 

Where he expects Archie’s trademark sheepish apology and tutting from Veronica, Jughead is aggressively shushed—still from Veronica. Archie is the one to roll his eyes, padding after Jughead into the kitchen. 

“She’s in party planning mode. I haven’t gotten a word in edgewise since Dad left for work and Ronnie finished off his pot of coffee.” 

_Damn,_ Jughead grumbles to himself, eyeballing the empty coffee maker. 

“We’ve been back for, what, twelve hours and she’s planning a party?” 

“Jug,” Archie says, pulling a carton of orange juice from the fridge and passing it off to him before reaching for his own sports drink. “I told you about this like four times. Ronnie is taking over the start of summer bash now that Cheryl Blossom moved to Paris. Or maybe it was Milan. Either way, it’s her big project right now. And it’s _tonight._ We were the last ones to get home, most schools let out like two weeks ago.” 

They each take swigs of their drinks and Jughead wracks his brain for a mention of this. It may have been a text from the middle of dead week, but everything from the past few weeks feels like a blur. He shrugs apologetically—both for his forgetfulness and, preemptively, for his refusal to go. 

Archie clocks this from a mile away. 

As much as Jughead likes to think he can maintain his poker face until death, Archie is one of the only ones to see right through him. He had become accustomed to his air of aloofness at college, but his classmates and new friends—a term he uses tentatively—have only known him a few months. Archie’s eighteen years of friendship puts him at a distinct advantage to cut through Jughead’s bullshit.

“Don’t even start,” Archie warns. “Veronica is really excited to get everyone back together and she’s been working really hard on it. She’s not gonna fight you on bailing—” _She’d lose,_ Jughead wants to say. Veronica gave up trying to drag him to her parties about four months into dating Archie their junior year. “—but I will.” 

Jughead bides his time by sipping at the meager amount of juice left in the carton; Fred must not have done his customary _two teenage boys are about to bulldoze through my kitchen_ stock up yet. He for sure should go bring him lunch at work. 

“I’ll think about it.” Jughead says this knowing by the look in Archie’s eye that he’ll be allowed to think about it as long as that thinking takes place while he is being frogmarched to the Lodges’ house later that night. 

Fortunately, Veronica saves him from that talking-to with a sharp _Archiekins!_ from the other room. “Shit,” he mutters. “I’m supposed to be her notetaker on delivery times.”

Jughead sees his opportunity and slips back upstairs. 

  
  
  
  


The intent is to eat lunch _with_ Fred but Jughead eyeballs the cherry pie in its glass tier for so long while downing coffee and waiting on the burgers that Pop Tate just cuts him a slice and tells him he looks like he needs it. 

He won’t argue with that. 

The bottom of his third cup of coffee greets him just as the bell above the door jingles and someone sidles up to the counter a few feet away from him. The coffee is not doing its job because it takes until Pop sets a large takeout bag in front of him and turns to cheerfully ask, “Betty! What can I get you?” 

Jughead is glad there’s no more coffee in his mouth to choke on. 

He can see her see _him_ realize she’s there and the sly smile from the corner of her mouth while she rattles off her own order sends Jughead back in time. 

Not too far back, obviously, but far enough back that it startles Jughead to feel any sort of nostalgia for Riverdale fucking High School. Betty flashing him that smile from across the newspaper office, from the other side of their respective best friends engaging in PDA, through her bedroom window and into his after he moved in with Archie and Fred permanently. Betty, a near-constant ray of sunshine in his periphery for their whole adolescence. 

Betty, memories of whom Jughead had carefully placed in a box in the back corner of his brain marked ‘Leave This In Riverdale’ to preserve his sanity. One does not go away for college while drowning in feelings over an unrequited childhood crush. 

(Well, one does. But one can try not to.)

“Betty Cooper,” he grins. “Of all the gin joints.” 

She giggles before moving closer; there is a split second hesitation that he sees before she just goes all-in for the hug, and the fact that she barrels through anyway warms his heart. No, he’s not a hugger, but he’ll be one for her. 

“I thought I might catch you here, Jug,” she says, pulling back. “Veronica wanted shakes before we go back to get her house ready for tonight, and she said you snuck out while she was on the phone with the caterer.” 

Caterers? _This_ Jughead can get on board with. He mood toward the party lightens considerably. And it does not hurt that Betty maintains her position as Veronica’s best friend and second-in-command. It does not hurt _at all._

“I didn’t see Fred when we got in last night and I slept pretty late, so I’m bringing him lunch to check in.” He nods in the direction of the grease-stained bag full of delicious cheeseburgers and fries, mourning that he must choose between hot off the grill Pops and talking with Betty for the first time in months. 

If he’s not entirely mistaken, Betty might feel the same way. Her eyes flicker between the bag and him, smile faltering just a fraction. 

“Go see Fred,” she encourages him softly. “We can catch up later, Jug.” 

“Later,” he confirms. 

“I’ll tell V that’s your official RSVP, so I’m holding you to that.” Her eyes sparkle and damn if Jughead doesn’t want to say to hell to the burgers and pull Betty into one of the worn out boothes to ask how her year away was. 

If there had been anybody in the whole damn town who wanted to escape more badly than Jughead, it was Betty Cooper. Co-captain of the Vixens, editor-in-chief of the Blue and Gold, and salutatorian (valedictorian ceded to Dilton Doiley) Betty Cooper told him on a late night editing session for the paper, the week college applications were due, that the only reason she wasn’t practically fleeing their home state was to stay close to her niece and nephew. 

Polly Cooper infamously crossed the Riverdale High graduation stage with a barely-hidden pregnancy belly before moving in with Jason Blossom and running a boutique skincare line subsidy of the Blossom Maple Corporation. Jughead knew that the scandal had been the final straw in the Coopers’ marriage but that Betty took the disintegration of her family relatively well. _Actually,_ she had whispered conspiratorially to him on another late editing night, _I threw one of my last AP Bio tests so that Dilton would beat me. I don’t care about valedictorian, but my mom does and I kind of can’t wait to tell her I’m ‘only’ salutatorian._

If Jughead hadn’t already been head over heels for Betty by then, that fact alone would have done it. 

“Cross my heart,” Jughead says with a tease in his voice and sincerity in his eyes, making the motion to confirm. “I would only go to a Lodge party for you, Betty Cooper.” 

He hopes that he hadn’t imagined the bashful way she chewed on her bottom lip at his comment, or the faint pink blush, high on her cheeks. 

  
  
  
  


Lunch with Fred is brief, just long enough for each of them to inhale their burgers before Fred needs to get back to overseeing a concrete pour, but the warmth in Fred’s _hey kid_ more than makes up for it. 

He’s always loved Fred as a father figure, but something about seeing him for the first time in months and feeling just as welcomed and loved as he had prior to leaving soothes the worry, deep in his gut, that Jughead hadn’t realized still lived there. 

Fred, astute as ever in reading through the Jones men’s facade, claps a hand on his shoulder before Jughead leaves. “Enjoy the party tonight, Jug. We’ve got all summer.” Jughead nods, swallowing a lump in his throat. “And you want back on the crew, right?” He nods again, grateful he did not have to ask. “I’ll grab paperwork for you to fill out later. You’ll see me so much this summer you’ll be sick of me.” 

Sick of _Riverdale_ , maybe, Jughead thinks. But that’s about all. 

  
  
  


The thing is, Jughead realizes throughout the afternoon as he meanders around town, he may actually have missed Riverdale. 

A little. 

Maybe. 

_Possibly, maybe._

(Add it to the list of things he must never let Veronica catch wind of.) 

If he were a bigger man, Jughead might admit that seeing Betty Cooper again has inspired this bout of hometown nostalgia. 

Archie is, mercifully, alone when Jughead returns to the house. Not that he specifically wants to avoid Veronica, but he would prefer to avoid a conversation about him seeing Betty. Jughead’s M.O. is to keep all thoughts and feelings under wrap unless absolutely necessary, and his long standing crush-turned-way-more-than-platonic on Betty had been neatly tucked away in a mental box, even before being packed into ‘Leave This in Riverdale.’ 

Veronica, though, has keen observational skills and a shrewd insight; much to his annoyance, she’d had him pegged to a T from nearly the moment they met in high school. She never once called him on his feelings for Betty, though he’s not sure if that was for his sake or for Betty’s—there is no way she _didn’t_ know. He thinks, anyway. 

Either way, Jughead does not feel like being teased at the moment. 

If he is going to show up to a _hometown party_ then he is going to spend his day being subhuman by stuffing his face with snacks and relishing in his freedom from school. 

And kicking Archie’s ass at video games. He’s tossed a controller and an unopened bag of Goldfish, and settles into the couch. Vegas, in his old man glory, is passed out belly-up on the middle cushion, separating the two of them. 

Even so—“Dude,” Jughead complains. “Veronica left before I did. How the fuck do you reek of a nooner?” 

(It’s not a scent Jughead is familiar with from personal experience. But the xbox was in Archie’s room in high school and he borrowed Archie’s car a lot. He’s happy his friends are happy but he really doesn’t like to know _how_ happy they are.) 

Archie grins at him, rueful. “Spring break was ages ago, man. We’re making up for lost time.” 

“Gross.” 

His only response is an eyeroll. “Trust me when I say I will throw this in your face sometime down the line when _you’re_ in love and, oh what was your favorite phrase to use in high school— _fucking more than rabbits_.” 

(They really had.) 

Again, Jughead mumbles, “Gross,” and funnels Goldfish into his mouth.

He is definitely _not_ thinking about Betty in combination with the phrase _fucking more than rabbits._ He is not. 

  
  
  
  


Later, as he digs through the unpacked bag designated for his not-dirty-but-definitely-not-clean clothes for a shirt Veronica will not mock him for, Jughead catches sight of fluttering curtains across the yard. The guest room’s— _his_ —windows are not as direct a line to Betty’s room as Archie’s are; instead, he faces Polly’s closed blinds right across the way. (He wonders if Alice Cooper might have permanently boarded up the room.) 

Betty herself is not in her room, but the windows are open and her pink curtains move with the breeze. Sunlight glances off her vanity mirror and shines back out toward Jughead. 

Having neighbors that close to you all your life is a foreign concept to him. Jughead spent plenty of time with Archie as kids—thus peripherally, with Betty, though by the time he was around more, Alice had pressed Betty into more ‘ladylike’ activities than faux-swordfighting on the swingset—but it had to be planned for, with set drop off and pick up times. (Set times that, often, the Jones parents forgot, but Fred and Mary never did, nor ever commented on.) 

He knows, though, that Archie had only ever been a short sprint away from Betty; an immediate refuge from fighting parents and other perils of adolescence. They used to be teased in middle school about being married one day, until Betty quashed the comments by responding to a _K-I-S-S-I-N-G_ chant by saying she would sooner marry Reggie who was _gross and obnoxious_ than marry Archie because he’s her brother for all intents and purposes. 

(Jughead knows that Reggie and others still hassled Archie about it through high school, in less conspicuous locker room chats. He had been wedged into his own corner locker, ready to take swings of his own, until Archie socked Moose Mason directly in the gut for making comments about whether Betty would become as _well-endowed in the chest region_ as Polly was. Comments came to a screeching halt after that.) 

(Unbeknownst to all, Polly’s particularly noticeable chest region was due to being pregnant with Jason Blossom’s kid. If Jason had shared gym class with them, Moose’s body probably never would have been found.) 

That level of loyalty is the best part of having Archie Andrews in your life. Jughead, Betty, and Veronica all have that privilege, but Jughead knows how much more intense it is for Betty and Archie, simply from a lifetime of proximity. 

Jughead stares at Betty’s curtains and thinks of all the missed opportunities while he lived in this room; if he had used that proximity to their advantage, would they be closer? If he hadn’t been so ashamed of the circumstances that brought him to live in the Andrewses’ guest room, could he and Betty done late night newspaper reporting from there? Would he have walked her home when they grew tired of acting as Archie and Veronica’s third and fourth wheel? 

Would Jughead have, on that stupid morning last August, decided to hell with it and padded out to the Cooper driveway in his barefeet to hug Betty goodbye before she left for school? Would a proper goodbye have given him enough hope to still maintain contact for that whole year? 

Archie pops into the doorway. “Jug, why are you staring out the window like you’re a war widow waiting for her husband?” 

_Christ,_ Jughead thinks. _If that’s not apt._

“Betty is already at Ronnie’s anyway. Hurry up and get dressed, or whatever, we’re supposed to be there by now anyway.” 

Before Jughead can insist that he was _not_ wistfully looking toward Betty’s bedroom, Archie is gone. 

  
  
  


“ _Toromobolo!”_ Jughead winces at the high-pitched welcome. “You’re here!” 

Veronica’s excitability could either be an exceptionally good mood, or the result of several drinks, it could go either way. The hug he’s met with means it’s likely alcohol related and he shrugs out of the embrace in an instant. 

“Heard you were handing out hugs today, Jug,” she winks. 

_Ah._ She’s talked to Betty, then. ( _But,_ he betrays himself by thinking, _that means_ _Betty brought up the hug.)_

Jughead schools his face into careful neutrality. “Only for people I like.” 

Veronica pouts goodnaturedly. “You wound me, and here I was about to offer you up an entire secret mini fridge of Jughead-only food, craft beers, _and_ craft sodas.” He makes a show of placing Veronica’s dropped arms back around his middle, mimicking the hug she had tried to give him. 

“Veronica Cecilia Lodge, I will do whatever you want as long as you do not throw the contents of that magical fridge into the pool to spite me.” 

She makes a show of huffing an exasperated sigh and slowly pulling her hands away again. “Ungrateful. Maybe I should let Archie know the location of your stash, or just leave you to fend off the regular party food,” she hums. 

“You wouldn’t dare.” 

Between them, Archie shakes his head. “You two are absurd.” 

Veronica flashes an exaggerated wink in Jughead’s direction before rocking up on her toes to kiss Archie’s cheek. “You like us this way.” 

(Archie does, Jughead knows. What had once been contentious, barbed repartee has mellowed out to goodnatured—albeit constant—bickering. Jughead may have judged Veronica harshly when she first moved to Riverdale, and does continue to call her out when the occasion merits, but they have fallen into a camaraderie that only those who love Archie can have.) 

(It’s not _quite_ the same camaraderie that Jughead and Betty have— _had,_ he supposes. They initially bonded through friendships with Archie, then homework and literature and film and family stresses, all solidified by a mutual disdain for their best friends’ PDA. 

God _damn_ it, he’s an idiot for not keeping in touch.) 

The fridge, the location of which Jughead has known since the second Veronica Lodge party he’d been unwittingly dragged to—party number one left Jughead bitterly drinking tap water in a corner—is indeed stocked with his favorites. Throughout high school, Veronica would fill it with a rotating cache of bougie nonalcoholic drinks for him to try, as well as some lighter alcoholic fare; Jughead learned very quickly that kombucha is terrible, and came to learn that not _all_ iced tea tastes like garbage and that having a couple of drinks does not make him his father. Not that FP likely ever splurged on anything that cost more than $8 for a 6-pack. 

Tonight, Jughead examines the over-the-top label of a coffee stout before cracking it open. For good measure, he slides a bottle of cream soda into his back pocket. And a couple extra sticks of fancy beef jerky. And peels open the wrapper of one right then. 

Snacks and mild liquid courage in hand, Jughead feels somewhat prepared to face a house full of high school classmates he had more or less forgotten in the past year. 

Facing Betty again, he feels vastly under-prepared for. 

Admittedly, Jughead is curious to know what his former classmates have been up to. That curiosity dies on the vine as he re-enters the large, crowded rec room to see none other than Reggie Mantle spinning Betty around in a hug after she sinks a ball into the last pong cup. 

The bite of jerky in his mouth feels like dust on the way down and he has to take a large swig of the beer to quell the coughing storm. 

Jughead had known that Betty and Reggie wound up at the same small liberal arts school, but Reggie had always been a bit of a blowhard whose shit Betty never tolerated. Though, he supposes, if even _he_ had changed enough to become a more social creature in college, maybe Reggie had grown out of his asinine ways. 

Snakes shedding their skin, and whatnot. 

Enough has shed for Betty to more than tolerate him, if the giddy smile she has is any indication. Reggie’s hand doesn’t leave her when he sets her down, resting comfortably on her shoulder over the baby blue strap of her sundress. 

Now Jughead feels miserable at the prospect of facing her again. 

He, better than anyone, knows how many emotions can grow when spending time in proximity to Betty. If Reggie has fallen under her spell, like Jughead had so many years ago, he can’t exactly blame him. 

  
  
  
  
  


Jughead forces himself into what turns into a fairly entertaining conversation with Dilton Doiley of all people; he’s studying video game design and holds court with a group of guys who had shoved the both of them into lockers in middle school at one point or another. 

He is surprised to discover he doesn’t hold onto those grudges anymore. It might have more to do with the visual of them hanging on to Dilton’s every word about the creation of FIFA than the dismantling of his personal baggage packed away into the neat little box of Riverdale shit in his head. 

One more flap of the box springs free when Betty drags him away from the circle by the crook of his elbow, popsicle in hand. 

“Snacks!” she cheers at him. “Boozy popsicles! But there’s a bunch of regular ones too, in exotic fruit flavors and everything. Not sure how well dragonfruit stands up in popsicle form, though. Trust Veronica to go to all these lengths for a party.” She waves a hand at the stocked bar behind her; he spies a tray of charcuterie behind tall glass bottles and makes a note to come back to those later. 

Jughead feels the impulse to cold shoulder her, for the nonexistent crime of being kind to him that allowed him to feel the tiniest piece of hope. He can’t bring himself to do it, but rather sticks to the aloof drawl he’s curated at school. “Covered on the snack front for now,” he pulls the spare jerky from his back pocket to wave it around. 

Betty’s green eyes blink a little extra at his tone, then—bewilderingly—track his hand as it replaces the food into its hiding spot. 

“Oh,” she says. Seemingly to give herself something to do, Betty licks at the side of the popsicle and then Jughead tries to look anywhere but at her and her tongue. 

At his reaction, her expression morphs away from confusion, into embarrassment and then something akin to satisfaction. With one arched eyebrow, she makes to suck the top into her open mouth—stained a beautiful bright red from the cherry red of the popsicle—before abruptly letting it drop on a swivel from its sparkly handle and placing it carefully into an equally sparkly plastic champagne flute. 

(Trust Veronica to have bougie _plastic_ of all things.) 

Betty smirks, a blush stained high on her cheeks, and Jughead could die on the spot. 

He may have actually died, gone to a heaven he might not even believe in, if he is standing in front of Betty Cooper while she teases him with mimed blowjobs. 

“Jug,” Betty starts. He flinches, startled to remember that she is flesh and blood in front of him, and not the ponytailed object of many a hormone-fueled dream. 

There is, he now notices, no ponytail in sight. Instead she fiddles with a lock of hair, tucking it behind one ear and squinting at him—the flinch probably did him no favors. 

“What?” 

That squint again. She shifts her weight, then sets the cup and its popsicle down on the shiny marble countertop. 

“Want to play a game? Or go out to the pool? I want to catch up, we only saw each other for a minute at Pop’s.” 

No, he doesn’t want to play a game or sit at Veronica’s ostentatious pool. Frankly, he doesn’t want to catch up with Betty that much either, not if catching up will involve a year’s worth of Reggie Mantle stories. 

The _actually I’m probably heading out_ is on the tip of his tongue when Veronica’s voice shouts above the din, clapping for attention. “Excuse me, former Bulldogs and Vixens! Things are feeling a little too tame for our first big gathering with a full year of university freedom under our collective Dolce belt.” 

Jughead groans audibly. Betty casts him a sidelong glance, grin forming, and pulls various bottles toward her on the counter to mix herself a drink in the popsicle-holding cup. 

While Veronica waxes poetic, Jughead pulls a face to Betty and her generous pour of vodka. “Trust me,” she says in a low voice that goes right to his belly. “We’ll need to stock up because once she gets going, none of us will be allowed to break for refills for fear we’ll split.” 

“Precisely why I’m going to cut and run right now.” 

Betty’s hand grasps at his elbow; where it had been warm before, it is now chilled from her drink. “No, don’t leave me alone!”

She says this at the same time Jughead tunes back in to Veronica’s demands. “In classic high school fashion, we’re doing truth or dare. In college style, we’re building in shots. Take a shot to skip your turn, two shots if you reject your truth or your dare. Gather round!” 

Jughead clenches his jaw. “Hard pass.” 

(The last time Jughead had born witness to a Riverdale party’s game of Truth or Dare was Archie’s 17th birthday; Veronica had planned a small, surprise dinner while Fred was out of town that Cheryl Blossom unceremoniously crashed for some inexplicable reason. Cheryl’s poison was a twist called Secrets and Sinners, essentially a vicious, bullying game of Truth or Truth, that ended with Jason punching a senior lacrosse player in the face, both Betty and Polly in tears, and Archie puking on Vegas’s bed. 

He is not eager to relive any portion of that evening.) 

“ _No,_ Jug, really, please stay.” Betty’s voice turns to a plea and his resolve weakens. “We can be the squares trying to hide who only pick truth. I really do want to hear about your year!” 

Jughead shakes his head adamantly, though he already knows he is staying. In for a penny, in for a pound, as is the way with having Betty in his life. He has to maintain some pretense and tries for one more verbal protest. 

Their usual banter must be rusty—and how could it not, when he was the idiot who failed to stay in touch—because Betty accepts his no. Her face crumples for a mere fraction of a second before she schools it back into a party-going smile. 

“Fair enough.” She squeezes his arm gently and releases him, and Jughead sees this already nonexistent chance slipping away with the condensation on her cup. 

“Betts, no,” he catches her by the wrist, slightly sticky with melted cherry popsicle. “I’ll stay—I’m staying.” 

Her look of delight fells him. 

Despite the drink in his hand, Jughead is suddenly parched; Betty laces her fingers through his to guide him over to the gathering circle and all he wants is to lick the sticky syrup from her hand. 

Veronica eyes the two of them from across the room, a canary-and-or-shit-eating grin spreading across her face. He should probably be more concerned by this than he is, but Betty still holds his hand after they’ve settled into a corner of the enormous leather sectional, so most coherent thoughts have firmly left his mind. On the coffee table, Veronica places an empty bottle of Veuve and spins. 

The glass on glass sound grates on his ears, but the bass of music somehow balances it all out. 

He spends the first few rounds drumming his fingers against the sweating can of beer in his hand. Fidgeting is standard for him, but this general anxiety is ratcheted up by Betty’s continued grasp on his other hand and by the game around them. Veronica won’t _actually_ make him—or anyone, for that matter—take shots for skipping his turn if it arises, but Jughead does not want to be confronted by the choice either way. 

Ginger Lopez prank calls Mr. Honey, the Riverdale High assistant principal; Moose streaks around the block with Reggie and Archie as corroborating witnesses; they all learn that the ‘wildest’ place Midge Klump has had sex is the Riverdale High football field, which merely confirms all their suspicions about what Midge and Moose got up to in high school.

With the game in the foreground, Betty makes up for lost time with a barrage of questions about his roommate, his classes, Christmas in Toledo, and whether he joined his school’s paper. He answered in his usual fashion—short and to the point—and tries to return in kind. Jughead’s year at school was fine and he tells her so, but he lacks the enthusiasm to ask about her own experience. 

She gives him vague details and he cannot tell if it’s to deliberately obscure Reggie’s presence or because she senses his disinterest in the topic. The Reggie situation, if there _is_ one, confuses him: Betty is still grasping Jughead’s hand. He is bewildered and still burned out from finals and very much over being at this party. 

Unable to help himself, though, he perks up when she mentions joining the student literary magazine to diversify her editing experience. Halfway through her summary of the worst short story submission she’d read—a so-called twist on “The Tell-Tale Heart” where the narrator is carrying on an affair with the police officer he calls—the Veuve points at her. 

Betty surprises him. “I’ll skip,” she calls out loud enough for Archie to hear. He’s the spinner, and Jughead doesn’t know how he could have missed whatever absurd thing he had just done. 

(Yes, he does know how.) 

Betty lifts her cup in cheers and takes a long sip in lieu of her shot, then turns back to continue her story for Jughead. 

“Betty, it’s still your spin,” Archie reminds her. Betty looks between her drink and Jughead’s hand, as though determining which is easiest to let go of. The fact that she needs to pause has Jughead’s stomach swooping in an annoying fashion. 

He shouldn’t be swooping, he shouldn’t be holding her hand. All of this was supposed to stay in its little box until it simply went away. And it _had_ to some degree, over the months away at school. But Betty has always had a way of catching him off guard. 

In the end, Betty doesn’t have to make a decision because Kevin Keller shows up fashionably late and she frees both of her hands to leap up and hug him. 

She claims hostess’s best friend rights to break the bottle rule, daring Kevin to jump into the pool. Kevin begs off, accepting his shots from Veronica, and explains in his usual flair, “These pants are far too tight to wear anything underneath and I am far too sober to skinny dip.” 

When Betty returns to her seat, she is much closer to Jughead with her leg pressed up against his. Both hands cradle her drink. 

Her conversation focus turns to Kevin now, perched on the arm of the couch, and Jughead plots how he can extricate himself from this whole ordeal without invoking Veronica’s wrath. His plotting takes on a new urgency once Reggie is dared to pick someone in the circle to kiss. 

Once again, Jughead is surprised as Reggie begs off and takes his shots. “I’m a changed man, my friends.” 

Betty breaks away from Kevin for a moment to tell Jughead, “He’s dating my roommate now. They are nauseatingly adorable. Like, worse than Veronica and Archie junior year adorable.” 

That swooping sensation again. 

He can’t get past the heady sense of relief to scoff at himself properly for overreacting before Veronica’s voice rings clear through the noise. “You’re all being boring, this isn’t _actually_ a high school party.” Jughead makes the mistake of catching her eye while she surveys the group, and she zeroes in on him. 

“Forsythe,” she begins sweetly. Jughead rolls his eyes and flips her off, Archie and a few others laughing lightly. “Truth or dare?” 

Everything in him tells Jughead to take his pass and leave. But… 

“Dare.” 

He doesn’t think he has ever seen Veronica look so delighted in the history of their friendship. Her eyes narrow slightly, calculating her best attack, and Jughead instantly regrets his decision. 

“I dare you to kiss your high school crush.” 

Beside him, Betty, who had paused her conversation with Kevin, freezes. 

Jughead shrugs. 

With the knee snug to her leg, he nudges Betty lightly. She turns to look at him, something indecipherable in her eyes. 

  
  
  


Jughead leans, lightning quick, over to kiss her, a brief but firm press of his mouth against hers. The cherry vodka on her lips is every bit as delicious as he’d hoped. 

Betty’s gasp of surprise is a puff of air against his mouth, drowned out by the deafening whistles and cheers as the room around them devolves into chaos. 

There is an excruciating pause where Jughead thinks he may have miscalculated. Behind her, Kevin looks riveted, but Betty only blinks at him, stunned into silence. 

Then, she is the one to surprise him, yanking him forward by the collar of his shirt and kissing him forcefully. 

  
  
  


Betty pulls back, kisses him quickly once more and then, “How the hell do you taste like coffee?” 

“Get a room,” Kevin crows. He follows it up with a near-shriek when Betty pulls Jughead up by the arm and marches him toward the set of French doors that lead out to the patio and pool. Behind them is sheer madness, muted only when Jughead firmly closes the doors behind them. 

Betty is crouching down at the edge of pool, backlit by a million strands of tealights that hang around the fence and bounce sparkles across the surface of the water. She unbuckles her sandals to toss them behind her before sitting at the edge of the deep end and dragging her toes through the water. 

Jughead paces for a few beats, unsure if he is supposed to sit down, launch himself into the pool, or launch himself into space. 

He sets his drink and the contents of his pockets on the ground before settling in next to her, crossing his legs awkwardly and bumping her several times in the process. Eventually he gives up to kick off his shoes one at time and tosses them blindly behind him. Betty laughs the whole while, watching him struggle and sipping at her drink. 

“Mean,” he accuses half-heartedly once his feet are in. He joins in her laughter—tonight, he is not above laughing at himself. 

  
  
  
  


“How come you never asked me out, Jug?” Betty’s voice is soft enough that Jughead leans an inch closer to hear her, setting off a ripple in the pool where their legs are dipped in the water. 

_How come, indeed,_ Jughead thinks to himself. An inflated sense of self-loathing, with more than a dash of self-preservation, mostly. “I didn’t think you’d say yes,” is what he admits instead. 

Betty looks up sharply. “Even to senior prom?” 

“What do you mean, even to senior prom?” The stare he is receiving is so piercing that Jughead considers telling Betty she looks like her mother with that expression just to snap her out of it. 

“I _mean_ ,” Betty says with the air of someone explaining something to a toddler. “I wanted to go to prom with you. I told Veronica to tell Archie that precisely so you wouldn’t _not_ ask for fear of me saying no.” 

Jughead is momentarily struck dumb. “Archie never said anything about you and prom.” _Had he? There’s no way; he would have remembered that._

What Jughead vaguely remembers is Archie, wincing at an online list of tuxedo rental prices, asking him if he was going to prom. There had been no addendum of _maybe you should ask Betty_ or _I think Betty wants to go to prom with you_ or _my girlfriend threatened me under pain of death to make sure you take her best friend to prom._ Jughead does not remember what exactly he had said, but it was probably some variation of an eyeroll-and-scoff combination. Because, no, he hadn’t planned to go to prom. But would have sucked it up and gotten over himself if he knew Betty wanted to go with him.

Surely if Veronica had been involved in a ploy to get Jughead and Betty to prom together, there would have been far more heavy-handed efforts; he wouldn’t even put it past her to have rented Jughead a tux herself and shoving it at him with a tie matching Betty’s dress, telling him crisply, _The limo is picking us up at 5, comb your hair and tell her she looks pretty, buy her a white corsage._

(He remembers that she _had_ worn a white corsage that stood out softly against the deep plum of her dress. The photos that Veronica posted on Instagram still, apparently, pain him with how lovely she looked.)

Betty looks at him, nonplussed. “He was supposed to! V made sure!” 

“Jesus,” Jughead mutters, mostly to himself. “The one time Archibald Andrews deployed subtlety.” Jughead has half a mind to stomp back into the house and smack Archie upside the head. 

“You would have taken me? You wanted to go with me too?” 

“Betty,” Jughead admonishes. “Did I or did I not just kiss you in front of most of our graduating class? Of course I would have gone to prom with you. I don’t even like the _idea_ of prom but I would have gone with you, if I’d known you wanted to.” 

She blinks rapidly, as if only remembering the action that put them in this particular situation. “Why _did_ you kiss me in front of most of our graduating class?” 

He doesn’t have an answer for her. _He_ has no idea what drove him to finally kiss Betty, let alone kiss her on a dare with an audience. 

And then, “I wanted to kiss you. Didn’t really put much thought into the context.” 

She exhales a quick laugh, kicks her feet to give a slight splash and Jughead sees that her toes are painted a bright purple—he wonders if that is the color she wore to go with her prom dress. 

“Betts, if you wanted to go to prom with me—hell, if you wanted to… to _be_ with me, I guess—how come you didn’t ask me yourself?” 

Betty has always been a straight shooter; she and Jughead shared a very frank, honest friendship over the years and she never shied away from correcting him, his grammar usage, or his ideas on the paper. Betty told him when she and Veronica were arguing, when Archie and Veronica were fighting and whose fault it was, when she was too exhausted from her family to do anything but ditch copyediting and go to Pop’s.

It might have taken a second or third repeat of Jughead asking if she was _sure_ she’s okay, but Betty and Jughead were honest with each other. 

...except for a couple of key things, it would appear. 

“I—” Betty heaves a big sigh and swirls her feet in figure eights under the water. “It’s silly.” 

“Not to me,” Jughead insists. “C’mon, tell me.” 

A few more figure eights. 

Then: she lifts herself up by the heels of her hands and slides right into the deep end. 

“Betty!” he laughs in surprise. “What the hell are you doing?” 

When she resurfaces, the ends of her hair stick to her collarbones in serpentine shapes and somehow her makeup has not smeared at all. “I,” Betty says triumphantly, “am avoiding the question, Jughead.” 

Something in his gut twists uncomfortably. Her avoidance is beginning to feel like a rejection and Jughead would also like to jump in the water to avoid feeling this way. 

“Jug.” 

He doesn’t realize his eyes are closed until he has to open them to look at her. The mascara on her lashes have turned them into spidery little clumps; she must have dunked her head in again. 

“I’m avoiding the embarrassment, not avoiding you.” 

His relief is palpable but he hums noncommittally to save a modicum of face. Not that there is much to be saved after essentially yanking his heart out of his chest and handing it to her. In front of an audience, no less. 

“Don’t make me pull you in,” she threatens. 

Jughead leans down to dip one hand in the water and splash her. Her yelp and giggle help to set his mind at ease. 

“Come on, Betts. Tell me.” 

Another big sigh. “I wanted to say yes.” 

Jughead squints at her, “I’m not following.” 

Betty rests her elbows on the pool’s edge, mere centimeters away from his crossed legs, propping her chin in her hands and closes her eyes. “I feel like such an idiot for this now but I—I really wanted to be asked and say yes. Not the whole huge, over-the-top promposal thing—” 

He laughs, thinking back to Archie’s prom invitation for Veronica. “No locker full of rose petals for you?” 

A look silences him, one that says _Yes, yes you’re very funny but shut the hell up I am trying to tell you something important._

Jughead shuts up. 

“My whole life, I said yes to everything. Yes, mom, I’ll do the dishes and help weed the garden and get straight A’s and wear the sweaters you buy me. Yes, Mr. Weatherbee, I’ll chair this committee and tutor this freshman and take this extracurricular. Yes, Archie, I’ll help get you out of hot water with Veronica. Yes, Veronica, I’ll drive with you to the bigger mall even though I wanted to stay home today. 

“I just... I wanted to be able to say yes to something and _mean it,_ not just say yes because I am a people pleaser and felt like I had to. I wanted to, for once in my life, say yes because I really and truly wanted what was being asked.” 

Jughead doesn’t cut in with what he’s thinking— _and_ **_I_ ** _was that thing?—_ but Betty seems to know it’s coming. 

“Yes, Jug. The something I wanted was you— _is_ you, still. If you still want me.” 

“If I still want you? Jesus, Betts, remember why we’re out here and why you’re in the pool?” 

But he thinks he understands; ostensibly, he kissed her on a dare, not completely of his own volition. The idea had been planted by someone else, so Betty must still see that sliver of a doubt in being wanted. Jughead more than gets that part, the _this feels a little too good to be true and too close to what I want for it to possibly be happening._ Jughead has been feeling that way since Betty initiated their second kiss. 

He watches her watch him, seeing the gears turn in her head at the same pace as his. There’s a smile she bites back, and a laugh bubbling to the surface. 

“Betty Cooper,” Jughead says with as much pomp and circumstance as he can muster. “Can I kiss you again?” 

It comes out all at once, that smile and the laugh and, “Yes.” 

The angle is impossible, with Jughead trying not to topple over and Betty still in the water but they make it work. Her lips taste like chlorine and cherry, and he probably has beer-and-coffee-and-jerky breath but she doesn’t seem to care. Damp fingers come to his neck and play with the short hairs behind his ear while Betty’s mouth is warm against his and then he does fall to the side slightly, bracing himself on one elbow to get closer to her. With his free hand, Jughead can’t stop touching her, trying to ensure it’s real: her cheek, the damp strands of hair, the stupid blue strap of her dress that Reggie touched earlier, the bottom of her lip when they break apart to stare at each other. 

It’s instinct from there. He pulls out his phone and wallet, unbuttons his jeans—tries not to lose his mind when Betty’s eyes fix firmly on his zipper and she dips under the water again to hide the blush staining her chest. 

With exactly none of her grace and all of his own aplomb, Jughead jumps into the pool. Cannonballs into it, really, because he can’t contain the giddiness surging through him. 

When he resurfaces, Betty is giggling and he has to doggy paddle almost entirely across the pool to reach her again. This time he’s able to use both hands to surge forward and bring their lips together, putting a firm stopper on Betty’s giggles that elicits a strangled sort of half-laugh-half-gasp, which goes all the way to his gut and has him pressing her body against the marbled tile of the pool wall. 

“You know,” she mumbles into the kiss, “We used to yell at Archie and V for doing this kind of shit all the time.” 

“What, making up for lost time?” It’s true, Jughead knows, that he and Betty had seen their friends do exactly this—not just kissing in public, but full on making out half-clothed in this very pool—many times over the years. But it’s also true that he and Betty could have been doing this for an entire year, _longer_ even, if they had not been such idiots about the whole thing. 

“No.” Betty breathes the word on an inhale, exhales slowly as she kisses down Jughead’s jaw and neck. “Making _out_ ,” she clarifies. “We gave them so much hell.”

He groans when she pulls back with a smirk. “Who knew we could have been doing this the whole time?” Really, though, Jughead would have happily quit complaining about Archie’s tongue’s constant presence in Veronica’s mouth once _he_ knew how nice it is to do this. He isn’t about to shove his tongue down Betty’s throat but he certainly does not mind kissing down her throat, especially with the noises she is making. 

Not quite a moan, or a whimper, but it’s there and it’s driving him crazy. 

That noise transforms into another giggle. “Your hair tickles, Juggie.” 

It’s the use of his childhood nickname that really clinches the incredible, glorious surprise of this all. 

He shakes his head, brushing his hair under her chin in an exaggerated fashion. Betty’s laugh turns out of control and she yanks him up to stamp a kiss before shoving him back with a splash. 

“Betty.” He puts on the exaggerated airs again. “Will you make out with me more?” 

The eye roll is phenomenal. As is the arched eyebrow. “What if I don’t say yes?” 

“Then I will simply have to revert to my angsty high school self and go brood on the other side of the pool.” He makes to swim away from her but Betty catches him by the ankle and yanks him back to her. It isn’t a makeout, but Betty sighs into his mouth and Jughead kisses her sweetly as though there is all the time in the world for it. 

They settle against the wall of the pool easily, Jughead pulling her to him under his arm. When she rests her head on his shoulder he relishes in the comfortable weight of it. On instinct, he kisses her temple and brushes some of the damp hair from her eye line. 

“Betty?” She _hmms_ without looking up. “Do you want to be with me?” 

Jughead is answered with a resounding _yes._

**Author's Note:**

> listen, y'all, I thrive on ao3 emails. I won't pretend to deny it.


End file.
